Under the microscope: A reader ’ s first 300 words critiqued

Your writing critiqued

Viv Seaman is a member of Leigh Writers and their hobby is writing novels, which are aimed at adult reades. Previous writing successes include a few articles, a self-published novel for older children, a short story in a Richard and Judy compilation for charity and a few competition poems published. Viv has twice enjoyed the Writers ’ Week at Swanwick, the first of which they won with a humorous written piece.

applies his forensic criticism to the first 300 words of a reader ’ s manuscript

“There you go, Stacey. 1 And see you don ’ t come back. We don ’ t wanna see your face round ’ ere no more!”2

The sound of metal gates clanging shut echoes in my ears3 as I step over the iron grid4 and out into the strong sunshine of freedom. I open my mouth and scream5 until my lungs hurt. 6

Passers-by don ’ t bother staring at me. 7 The people who live near the prison seem used to such things. 8 One old lady, trailing a shopping trolley, 9 gives me a thumbs up. I manage a half-hearted smile in her direction. 10 I should feel great, relieved, 11 something other than how I do feel. 12 Tired, 13 no exhausted and deeply dejected. 14

I sling the polythene bag holding my belongings over my shoulder and begin trudging along until I come to a bus-stop. 15 Annoyingly, 16 despite having plenty of funds in the bank, I can ’ t access them until I get home. I just have a small amount of cash the prison warder has given me. Enough for a bus to the nearest train station and a one-way ticket home to Essex. 17 I can ’ t wait. I can almost detect18 the smell of seaweed and chips in my nostrils. 19 The smell of home. Southend-on-Sea.

“I’ll get her for this. ” I am aware I’ m talking to myself. 20 I used to do that all the time inside. “I’ll get my own back if it ’ s the last thing I do. ” I am still muttering under my breath. 21

It ’ s a busy place, East London, and it ’ s not long before a bus arrives. 22 I check the front indicator. 23 Fenchurch Street station. 24 I haul my bag of stuff up to the top deck and plonk down on a seat near the stairs. 24 I have to keep an eye out for the stop. 25 I might have to get off quickly. 26

1A mildly confusing first sentence. It seems Stacey has been handed something and we might imagine she ’ s in a shop. The next sentence makes this unlikely, however, without clarifying what the thing was..

2The exclamation mark suggests the speaker has suddenly started shouting. Why? This, and the lack of context, makes the fist paragraph confusing to read. Maybe the intention was to create suspense – what ’ s happening here? – but that ’ s not how it feels.

3Clanging is a sound so you don ’ t need to tell us it ’ s a sound. Also, where else would Stacey hear it except in her ears? A pedantic point: the clanging is not echoing solely in her ears but generally. Indeed, I wonder if it ’ s actually echoing at all. Maybe more of a reverberation or vibration? 4 I’ m imagining a kind of cattle grid here, but it can ’ t be. Why would she have to step over it? Why is it there?

5Is it possible to scream without opening one ’ s mouth? Just write, ‘I screamed’ unless you want the reader specifically to picture the character standing in the street with their mouth open prior to screaming.

6Is it the lungs that hurt after screaming? Or is it the throat and voice box? For the lungs to hurt, she ’d have to be taking such deep breaths, and so many, that hyperventilation is the result. And even then, painful lungs would probably be from a preexisting condition.

7Unlikely. A person is standing in the street and screaming until they ’ re literally in pain and nobody pays attention? It ’ s London, but still...

8They ’ re used to recently released convicts screaming in the street? How often are convicts released for the locals to have become so accustomed to their screaming? I’ m not entirely convinced.

9What does

‘ trailing ’ mean? She ’ s pulling a shopping trolley behind her? That ’ s possible but inconvenient and improbable. Or is the shopping trolley pulling her along? The sentence seems to suggest that the trolley is in control.

10 Do old es the char lady or acter smile at the

‘in her direction ’? There ’ s a difference.

11. A nee comma wo d a dash or n ’ t work a colon. here. You

12 Same mean aga ing in. to If yo flow, u y want ou ne th ed e a dash or a colon. However, that would make the sentence as a whole less readable. The various clauses need unpicking and connecting with punctuation that helps the sense.

13 An for d t again. A c he kind of omma isn ’ t right emphasis you want here. A dash and a comma would be better (see the rewrite).

14 The out i character has nto the sunsh just ine st of epped freedom and screamed. We might have assumed happiness, but it ’ s actually dejection? Did she enjoy being in prison?

15 No indic trudged. atio I’ m n of assu how ming far she a matter of metres, but ‘ trudging ’ suggests a greater distance. Also, the phrasing makes it sound like she was looking for any bus stop rather than a particular one.

16 Avoid signposting reader. Show that emotions for the character the is annoyed by presenting their situation and let the reader perceive the annoyance.

17 I suggest switch to a new paragraph here as we the character ’ s reflections. 18 ‘Detect ’ isn ’ t an i is an odd wo nvestigation. rd It . This looks suspiciously like a synonym used to avoid repeating ‘ smell’ but the solution is simpler: ‘I could almost smell the seaweed and chips... ’

19. a Where e nything lse exc wo ept uld in s h he er smell nostrils? This said, it does raise the interesting question of smells we hold in our long-term memories. Can we ‘ smell’ them when they are only being remembered?

20 Some thems peopl elves. e do talk When ch to aracters do this in books or films, though, it tends to look like the author trying to tell the reader something in a very unsubtle way. Why say it out loud? Just have the character think it.

21 This makes unnatural –the effect highlight even more ing to the reader that the character is still talking to herself. It ’ s also redundant because the quotation marks make it clear.

22 Do we need London is b to b usy? e told th It seems at E like ast second-guessing a reader who might doubt the frequency of buses. 23 The tells front other indica driver t s or if is th w e h b at us is about to turn (assuming the driver uses them). What should we call the thing you ’ re referring to? The destination display?

24 Often, on the the bus de is stination the final disp stop layed rather than the stops along the way. I wonder if all buses that stop at Fenchurch Street have it on their displays?

25 Maybe it ’ s just me, but

‘ plonk’ doesn ’ t seem to be a very good

verb.

26A pote on the ntial n upper on de se ck quitur? Be wouldn ’ t ing necessarily make it easier to spot the stop, which could be on the other side of the bus. If the narrator already knows what the station looks like, being on the lower deck would be fine. If they don ’ t know, then it might be easier to closer to the driver and ask?

27 Why quick go ly u m psta ight irs be if a getting necessi o ty ff ? It also suggests that the narrator doesn ’ t know where the station is, so being upstairs won ’ t help much with spotting it.

y r a m m s u n I

At first glance, this looks like a perfectly acceptable piece of writing. It ’ s clear what ’ s happening and the narrative is organised effectively to show the character and action. The problem is in the precision of the prose.

Good writing should contain no repetition, redundancy, accidental ambiguity or errors. It should be easy to read and credible. Outside difficult literature, the reader should never have to pause – even just a blink or a flicker – to wonder what something means or if it makes sense.

Writers need to be more critical of their work than anyone else. They need to read it with close attention and weed out everything that doesn ’ t contribute, that overcomplicates or that is vague. We know that mouths scream. We know that nostrils smell. We know that ‘ clanging ’ is a sound and that an echo is not the same as a vibration. The writer must distil meaning rather than leave the reader to pick the sense out of the sentences.

There are some indications of good style here. I like the short sentences separated by full stops, which capture the staccato and fragmentary nature of genuine thoughts and therefore of the character ’ s mind. That ’ s why we don ’ t need her to speak out loud.

Sometimes, we ’ re guilty of ‘ writing ’ rather than writing. The former is about the gathering of words on a page: scenes and speech we ’d like the reader to perceive. A recently released prisoner screaming dramatically in the street (despite being newly free). The latter is the direct visualisation of the scene in the reader ’ s mind as if the words themselves don ’ t exist. The reader doesn ’ t notice the punctuation or question the probability. It just comes alive. For this to happen, we have to hone our prose to the bone.